{"id":163313,"date":"2025-09-23T11:16:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/163313\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T11:16:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:16:17","slug":"james-moffat-surprised-by-tickford-teammate-mark-winterbottoms-move-in-supercars-the-bend-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/163313\/","title":{"rendered":"James Moffat surprised by Tickford teammate Mark Winterbottom’s move in Supercars’ The Bend 500"},"content":{"rendered":"

JAMES Moffat has admitted to being caught off-guard by an aggressive move by Tickford Racing stablemate Mark Winterbottom<\/a> in the Ryco Enduro Cup opener.<\/p>\n

Having this year switched across to Thomas Randle<\/a>\u2019s side of the garage to accommodate Winterbottom\u2019s return, Moffat made a blistering start to vault the #55 Castrol Ford from fifth to third by the first corner of The Bend 500.<\/p>\n

But in his own words, that was as good as it got.<\/p>\n

Eventual co-winner Todd Hazelwood<\/a> swiftly passed both of Tickford\u2019s lead Mustangs, before Winterbottom lunged Moffat \u2013 complete with light contact \u2013 at the penultimate corner on Lap 5 to snatch fourth.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the pre-race conversations, a little bit by surprise, but that\u2019s part of racing,\u201d Moffat said of that moment via the latest episode of The Undercut<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you live and you learn and it\u2019s in the back of the memory bank for Bathurst in a couple of weeks\u2019 time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"James Moffat<\/a> with Thomas Randle. Pic: Supplied\/Mark Horsburgh<\/p>\n

Winterbottom and Cam Waters<\/a> went on to finish second, while Moffat was critical of his own performance as the #55 wound up ninth.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeed-wise very promising, but the fact is a costly error by myself in the race hurt us in terms of our track position,\u201d said the two-time race winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo ultimately ninth at the end of the race, but our speed was probably better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moffat\u2019s The Undercut co-host Jack Perkins<\/a> is similarly looking within for more come next month\u2019s Repco Bathurst 1000.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sort of got beaten around a bit at the start of the race and struggled with the aggression levels, so I need to pick up my game, and the pace wasn\u2019t strong either,\u201d said Perkins.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cJames (Courtney) got his head around the car really good in the last stint and the pace was quite strong for JC, so we just need to take the positives to Bathurst now and hopefully have a better result.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I think the ingredients are all there, we\u2019re working closely with Walkinshaws in the deal that the Blanchards have, and hopefully we can improve from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perkins had gone in better prepared than ever on the back of three races in the US (including two in the NASCAR Xfinity Series) and a stack of simulator work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just didn\u2019t translate for me unfortunately. So not back to the drawing board, but working incredibly between The Bend and Bathurst just to get on top of my own game and I know the team are working pretty hard as well,\u201d Perkins added.<\/p>\n

The Bathurst 1000 will take place across October 9-12.<\/p>\n

The Undercut \u2013 Unpacking The Bend & Bringing on The Mountain<\/p>\n

V8 Sleuth’s take on the world of Supercars from The Bend & Bathurst, with thanks to Shell OTR!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JAMES Moffat has admitted to being caught off-guard by an aggressive move by Tickford Racing stablemate Mark Winterbottom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-163313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}